AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

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Friday, October 19, 2007

‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’ NEWS.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert paid a quick visit to Russia yesterday to meet President Vladimir Putin anxious to hear what Putin had to say to President Ahmadinejad of Iran who Putin had visited in Tehran only the day before.

The rapidity of Olmert’s visit could well be an indicator that Israel and the US are ready to move on in their quest to deal Iran a blow that it will find difficult to recover from and hopefully, from Israel’s and America’s point of view, usher in the desired ‘regime change’ that Israel needs before it can go ahead with dealing with Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the occupied territories.

President Bush has said that he is determined to go down the diplomatic road to achieving a ‘settlement’ of some kind with Iran over Iran’s alleged ‘nuclear ambitions’. The problem is, as far as Iran is concerned, there is no ‘settlement’ to be reached because Iran doesn’t have any ‘nuclear ambitions’ beyond generating electricity from nuclear powered stations.

The US and Israel are going down the ‘diplomatic road’ first simply because they have to in order to garner as much support as possible from the world community for an eventual attack on Iran that they hope will result in regime change. However, the US and Israel, as well as the Russians, know full well that Iran is not anywhere near having a program that is able to enrich uranium beyond that which is required for electrical power generation. The Russians, indeed, would in particular know because it is they that are helping build the nuclear plants for Iran. Furthermore, a nuclear armed Iran is not in Russia’s interests any more than it is in Israel’s or the US.

But, for the sake of diplomatic appearances, the Israelis and the US must continue to travel down the ‘diplomatic road’ all the while knowing that it is a pointless exercise that achieves nothing accept buy time for the Iranians and the Russians to try and avert a catastrophe that could end in a confrontation that escalates far beyond just the Middle East region.

Olmert went to Russia to see Putin, not to ask Putin to support further sanctions by the UN against Iran – Olmert knows that neither Russia or China are likely to support further sanction – but because he needed to ask anyway as part of the ‘diplomatic road’ Israel and the US need to travel down before launching their attack against Iran.

Over this coming weekend and during the first part of next week Olmert will be travelling to Europe to speak to French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown both of whom are likely to support Olmert’s request for sanctions. Visiting Sarkozy and Brown at least keeps up the appearance of ‘diplomacy’. At the end of next week or during the week after, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, will be heading off to China on a similar mission where the outcome is likely to be the same as Olmert’s visit to Russia – pointless.

Without Russian or Chinese support, Israeli and US requests for UN sponsored sanctions are doomed. The ‘diplomatic road’, as far as the Israelis and the US is concerned, will have been fully travelled.

The upshot of all this is; the faux ‘diplomatic road’ has as good as come to an end, just as it did prior to the US and their allies launching their attack against Iraq, and this will now leave the US and/or Israel free to tell the world that it has no choice but to deal with the Iran threat in its own way – which, since Iran’s ‘nuclear ambitions’ has always been just a propaganda and rhetoric tool to mask the real intent of Israel and the US, is exactly what Olmert was after in the first place.

Perhaps, looking at it from Olmert’s point of view, he didn’t come away from Putin empty-handed after all.

I caught up with those Craig; interesting stuff. Bob Wall also put one up which I think is important because it comes from conservative insiders who were close to the major players in the first admin. Cut and paste this and have an interesting read:http://www.esquire.com/print-this/iranbriefing1107 What bothers me is that there's nobody out on the streets demonstraing their fear of a war that could well have far more disastrous consequences than the Iraq invasion. People have to understand that it is not a matter of 'if' ('if' Iran stops enriching uranium there will be no war) it is a matter only of 'when' since it is about regime change, not Iran's nuclear ambitions. Diplomacy is only being used to enhance the perception of the nuclear con story.

If you get the chance to read that article by Daniel Levy, you'll notice he says:

"The U.S. has been backing at least three proxy opposition groups to little effect: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK, Iraq-based), the Baluchi Jundullah group (Soldiers of God) and the Kurdish Pejak."

Remember what Scott Ritter wrote about the MEK / CDI / NCRI connections:

"Sobhani [an Iranian con-artist] and CDI [Committee for a Democratic Iran, an AIPAC spinoff] provided an ideal solution, namely that the Israeli government use Reza Pahlavi as the mouthpiece for telling the world about what the Iranians were up to in the field of nuclear weapons, and in exchange Pahlavi would be given immedite credibility and with it front runner status in the race of those trying to rule Iran post-Mullah. Unfortunately for the Israelis and CDI, Reza Pahlavi balked…Undeterred, [Michael] Ledeen and the CI turned to the MEK, or more specifically, its political front in the Washingt, D.C., the NCRI, as the next best option to bring the Israeli intelligence to center stage. CDI reportedly lobbied the NCRI representative, Alireza Jaferzadeh, to serve as the mouthpiece for presenting the Israeli intelligence to the general public…Isareli intelligence had maintained a relationship with the MEK that dated back to the mid-1990s. ("Target Iran" p. xxv)

The "Baluchi Jundullah" is actually a group, called Jundullah, that is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe. It operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. Yet, Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf back in February.

Jundullah has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. The group produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan.

Abd el Malik Regi claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians. Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center, reports that Regi used to fight with the Taliban. "He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist."

It was Seymour Hirsh who broke the news last November that the Pejak was being provided with training and equipment by the U.S. and Israel. Hirsh quoted a government adviser with close links to the U.S. Department of Defense who said that PEJAK would realise secret cross-border operations, "as a part of its plans to find alternative ways to pressure Iran."

Craig, in a roundabout sort of a way Levy backs up what I’ve being saying about Ahmadinejad. He writes: “President Ahmadinejad may be all of the things that the president of Columbia University accused him of being, and more, but he does not solely define Iran's national interest - far from it. Tehran hosts a complex web of competing power centers, and Ahmadinejad's brand of messianism does not necessarily translate into a suicidal or even nonrational state policy.”

I’ve been arguing that all this fuss about Iran being a threat because of its nuclear ambitions and being led by someone like Ahmadinejad is just a propaganda furphy because Israel and the US have been carrying on about Iran long before Ahmadinejad came on to the scene and if he dropped dead this afternoon it wouldn’t make an iota of difference to Israeli and US policy toward Iran – they’d simply adjust the propaganda and rhetoric. Regime change is still the endgame for them as far as Iran is concerned.

I also take the view as expressed in the conclusion of the second article:

"Ebadi argues that threats of war only empower conservative forces to crack down on dissenting voices. 'I never believe in foreign pressure,' she says. 'I believe in public opinion in Iran.' Like the vast majority of Iran’s pro-democracy activists, she seeks social transformation from within.

Craig, I’m sure the Iranian people would like regime change and, come 14 March 2008, they will get the opportunity to at least change their President. Unfortunately, it’s not quite the ‘regime change’ that the US and the Israelis have in mind. They would prefer to see something far more radical with a whole new system – not just a government – in place that is totally pro-western and pro-Israeli. All the next elections will do is possibly bring to presidential power someone less radical than Ahmadinejad but nonetheless still anti-Zionist and anti-US. In other words, a staunchly theocratic system will remain.

The one thing the Iranian election will do, however, especially if Ahmadinejad loses, is deprive Israel and the US of a propaganda monkey. Since much of the Israeli/US propaganda and rhetoric calling for an attack on Iran now revolves around Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric specifically, indeed, his rhetoric alone is being pushed by some as casus belli to attack, his demise as President by virtue of an Iranian presidential election would be a severe setback for the right-wing Israelis and warhawks in the US. This no doubt will have crossed the minds of those pushing for war meaning that a pre-14 March attack is more likely than a post-14 March attack. On the other hand, if there is no attack prior to the Iranian presidential election and Ahmadinejad is returned in an even greater landside than he won by last time, then that will prove to be even more disastrous for the Israelis and the US who have been busy claiming that Iranians don’t like their President. Either way, not attacking before the next Iranian presidential elections could be troublesome for the Israeli/US alliance.

Personally, I have very little time for the policies and ideology of Ahmadinejad or a theocratic system of government especially where human rights are abused. However, I have even less time for nation-states of any hue or colour, regardless of politics or ideology, that is pretentious and self righteous enough to dictate how and what style of governments peoples of other nation-states should or should not have. Peoples of different nations and cultures must be allowed to find their own way through self-determination. Throughout recent history modern western governments have tried to push their ideology on to lesser nations in the name of improving the lot of those peoples they have invaded using the propaganda of ‘freedom’, ‘civilisation’ and recently, ‘democracy’ when the geopolitical reality is that wealth and power has always been the real motives behind such endeavours.

Hypocrisy and arrogance are the real values that ‘they’ hate about ‘us’.

This past week I've been reading Waleed Aly's book, People Like Us: How arrogance is dividing Islam and the West, and sitting in my garden this afternoon with this excellent work in hand, a thought came to mind.

The thought was this: The term 'regime change' is a meme that carries a double meaning.

It can be taken to mean, at the literal interpretation, simply a change of, or a change in, a government.

But when we're talking about the term as it's conceptualised by neocons and fellow travellers it is about the forcible overthrow by them (and potentially coalition partners) of a government they consider to be illegitimate. Mideast 'regimes' in their sights at present are the governments in Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Somalia. And, of course, they've already set about 'regime change' in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I spoke earlier of being keen to see ultimately a change in the regime, what I was talking about was what could be brought about only by non-violent means through people-power working within Iran (and, to be frank, I'd like to see it ultimately in the other nations listed).

So, what I'm thinking now is that we should take care to clarify that the kind of socio-political change that can happen within a nation is not properly called 'regime change'.

Indeed, to ensure there is greater clarity about this, it would be good to undermine the use of the 'regime change' meme.

Whenever the meme appears people interested in the promotion of peace could point out what it really is: Illegal intervention in the affairs of a sovreign state.

Hi damiaan ,good to see you going strong. And I notice you have someonei respect from wd with you a bit here.

here is a little worrying comment from happy Olmerthttp://en.rian.ru/world/20071019/84652272.html

Considering this or next week the daughter of irgun is slipping off to China that should just about do it, a wrap as they say.

Of course I think the Iranian pres may have had somthing when he said "who is wagging whom". How it benefits zionism to go after Iran beats me. Reprisal is assured.

How it benefits foreign based zionists and bankers and MIC however is clear.

wonder if such is beyond the double dealing? remove the liability and cement control of ME oil in one stroke.

The fleet must move out of reprisal range. Why they are there is nonsensical unless one wants the US to suffer after a strike.That opens another line of analysis.

The strike must be soon as Russia is talking up a base in Syria .

And now we have a new joint head of the armed forces who has no problem with attack upon Iran.

Only immediate open basing of Russian defences in Syria and Iran will stop all this. And such would raise the stakes to open challenge with Russia. But can they afford to loose ME oil to "US"? hmmm. wotcha think Damiaan? So complicated, like a middle game of chess.

Hello Damian and 'Annie Sourris' (need for a nym understood and respected),

I've been looking back in an effort to better understand why the U.S. wants to illegally intervene in the affairs of Iran. I'll share a bit of what I find over time. For now, I thought you may be interested in this article by Lt. Frank Okata:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast2.pdf

If you look at the article you'll see Lt. Okata starts off in the very first sentence describing Iran as "the largest country in the Persian Gulf and member of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil", which couldn't be a stronger indicator of the bias.

"Stepping away from the "realist" world of his father--where a vision of regional stability, not a belief in individual liberty and democracy, drove foreign policy--George W. Bush has sliced across national borders and civilizational divides with an unqualified assertion of a moral norm."

More telling is that Reuel Marc Gerecht was writing in May 2002 and said:

"THE WISEST PATH is probably to punt downfield, as the administration is doing with the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. The war with Iraq--assuming it happens--will have an enormous impact on the Middle East. If the United States stays in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime, and ushers in some type of a federal, democratic system, the repercussions throughout the region could be transformative. Popular discontent in Iran tends to heat up when U.S. soldiers get close to the Islamic Republic. An American invasion could possibly provoke riots in Iran--simultaneous uprisings in major cities that would simply be beyond the scope of regime-loyal specialized riot-control units. The army or the Revolutionary Guard Corps would have to be pulled into service in large numbers, and that's when things could get interesting. The clerical regime fears big street confrontations, afraid that it cannot rely on the loyalty of either the army or the Guard Corps."

"And if an American invasion doesn't provoke urban unrest, the creation of a democratic Iraq probably will. Iraq's majority Shiite population, who will inevitably lead their country in a democratic state, will start to talk to their Shiite brethren over the Iran-Iraq border. The collective Iranian conversation about American-aided democracy in Iraq will be brutal for the mullahs (which is why the Bush administration should prepare itself for Iranian mischief in Iraq's politics once Tehran determines that the Bush administration is indeed serious about ensuring a democratic triumph in Baghdad). The Bush administration should, of course, quickly and loudly support any demonstrators who hit the streets in Iran. America's approval will not be the kiss of death for the brave dissidents who challenge the regime's armed defenders. On the contrary, such psychological support could prove critical to those trying to show to the people that the die is now decisively cast against the regime."

We know where the "wisest path" from the neocon point of view has led. No-where good.

It's interesting to read Source Watch on U.S. "Regime Change" policy (aka illegal intervention in the affairs of sovreign nations to ensure unrivaled US military power):

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Regime_change

Note this: [Larry] Chin identifies the "1950 NSC Memorandum 68, written by Paul H. Nitze (for then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson), [as] the policy basis of the Cold War. Every successive US administration has implemented hard-line policies that can be directly traced to NSC-68, which calls for the destruction of the Soviet Union and unrivaled US military power."

NSC-68 can be read here: Chin identifies the "1950 NSC Memorandum 68, written by Paul H. Nitze (for then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson), [as] the policy basis of the Cold War. Every successive US administration has implemented hard-line policies that can be directly traced to NSC-68, which calls for the destruction of the Soviet Union and unrivaled US military power."

A Newseek interview in 2003 with Manucher Ghorbanifar (aka Gorba), a former Iranian spy who played a middleman role in the Iran-contra affair during the Reagan years, makes it clear that one of the things he discussed with U.S. Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris in June 2002 with only Rhode) was illegal intervention to overthrow the regime in Iran.

For some reason the URL has been cut short. Here it is again, just join up the two lines:

A Newseek interview in 2003 with Manucher Ghorbanifar (aka Gorba), a former Iranian spy who played a middleman role in the Iran-contra affair during the Reagan years, makes it clear that one of the things he discussed with U.S. Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris in June 2002 with only Rhode) was illegal intervention to overthrow the regime in Iran.

G’day Craig and Annie. You’ve got it about right Craig. The term ‘regime change’ no longer simply means to ‘change government’. The term has been recontextualised to mean total replacement of one ideologically-based governmental system with one that is totally different founded on a totally different ideological system that is usually diametrically opposed to the original. The arrogance is in the western assumption that this is what they really want and is what will be good for them.

In the Iranian example the Iranians actually like the capital and wealth creating ideals of western business practices, particularly American capitalism. Their objection, however, is the false morality that the US display in practising their form of capitalism; the every man for himself greed is good philosophy that excludes the needs of the vast majority of the people who are unable or are unsuccessful in creating their own wealth does not mix readily with the complex ethics of a modern neo-secular but still devoutly Islamic society.

What Gerecht and his fellow neocons continually fail to realise is that, while peoples in any nation will always want to live in a better society and always wish for change and improvement, they also want to do it for themselves and without any outside influence. The Iranian people may well want change but not the kind of change that the US has in mind for them – especially after what they have seen happening in Iraq. The reality is that people object to being bombed and invaded by foreign nations regardless of how bad their own government is. Loathe and detest John Howard as I do and despite how much I wish for a change in government here, I will be the first to defend us from a foreign troop that has come to kill and plunder in Australia and if that meant fighting alongside Howard, figuratively or metaphorically, then so be it. And why should it be any different in Iraq or Iran.

Annie, you ask how going after Iran can benefit Zionism. The way the Israelis see it is like this: With Iran subdued and no longer an influence on Syria, the flow-on effect will be that Hizbollah in S. Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza will have lost both their primary and secondary source of support rendering them far more susceptible to capitulation to Israeli demands allowing the Israelis to get much closer to their dream of a Greater Israel at the Palestinians expense.

I found in NSC 68 something that I think points to the problem at its root.

The first section, headed 'Background of the Present Crises', includes these telling lines:

Two complex sets of factors have now basically altered this historic distribution of power.

First, the defeat of Germany and Japan and the decline of the British and French Empires have interacted with the development of the United States and the Soviet Union in such a way that power increasingly gravitated to these two centers.

Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.

Years later we see that statement was re-made into Reagan's "Evil Empire" meme.

But did the Soviets truly seek to impose absolute authority over the entire world? And what exactly is signified by that reference to "a new fanatical faith"?

I find myself wondering whether the keenest of cold war warriors were most afraid of the Communism, the Stalinism, the Atheism or whether it would have cast itself in the same role against any potential competition no matter what -ism could be used to characterise it?

The way things are playing out in the contemporary situation I'd suggest it is probably the latter.

"For all his trouble all Olmert got for his efforts was a suggestion from Putin that Israel negotiate with Iran over the ‘nuclear’ problem."

I agree that Iran is no nuclear threat to Israel or anyone else, but maybe Putin was telling Olmert to address Iran's legitimate concerns about a belligerent nuclear armed Israel.Addressing the issue of Israel's nuclear weapons is essential if we want an enduring settlement in the Middle East. The sooner we are rid of them the better. I believe it is an achievable goal.

My guess is that Olmet is a bit out in the cold at the moment and is looking for some way to create a peace legacy.Olmert has been somewhat conciliatory towards Syria recently(1) and Israel reportedly withdrew some of its armor from a confrontational position near Syria back to the Negev desert.(2)It is difficult to reconcile Olmert's words on Sept 5 with the supposed attack on Syria. It suggests that he was out of the loop about the incident.

(1) "Israel does not want war today and, according to our assessments, nor do the Syrians, so there does not need to be a war," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday morning after watching tank exercises on the Golan Heights.http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557447486&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

(2) Last Wednesday, Sept. 5, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, conveyed to Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed Muallem a personal, verbal message from Olmert. Solana said that Israel had begun to withdraw some of its military units from the Golan Heights, that military exercises were moved to the Negev and that Israel was determined to reduce tensions along the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/westview/story/4036718p-4646323c.html

Craig, the Truman doctrine of containment as expressed in NSC 68 and famously put forward by Kennan was all that the US needed to provide it self with an enemy that it didn’t really need to actually confront. Sure, they jumped up an down and pulled funny faces at each other and called each other names but neither could really take on each other because they were simply too big for each other. It worked well for both sides. The US Military Industrial Complex made megabucks dreaming up ways to further deter while the USSR kept a lot of people employed in their design bureaus and weapons factories doing much the same thing. And, as if just to give the whole farce some meaning, both sides supported smaller nations in their proxy wars. It turns out that neither side needed to use their horrific weapons – just as well – but, now the Cold War is over and the US needs another enemy, what better enemy than one that is sitting on top of the energy resources needed to conquer the new enemy. The latest ‘isms’ keep things rolling along and the doctrine of pre-emption replacing that of containment suits, from their point of view, the new ideology of faux democracy being projected everywhere to cover for the geopolitical reality of resource hegemony.

Moonkoon, many thanks for your contributions to the debate and for your support. I suspect that Olmert is not really the full-on Israeli leader that the extreme right-wing Zionists would prefer to have. I’m sure that the neocons and Cheney, et al, within the administration would much prefer to have someone like Netanyahu as PM to shove along their more aggressive ideals as they head toward their Greater Israel dream. As a war leader, Olmert is a failure and the Americans aren’t that keen on supporting failures. The US gave him every opportunity to prove himself in Lebanon during last years war yet was still unable to prevail. If he can’t get the better of Hizbollah, then how is he going to cope against Syria and Iran? The only thing that Olmert has going for him at the moment is a Defence chief, Gabi Ashkenazi, who is a far better soldier than his predecessor Daniel Halutz ever was. I’m not so sure that Olmert was entirely out of the loop as you suggest over the Syrian incident but I do think he may have stepped back and let the US and the IAF do their thing. But whether or not the US neocons trust Olmert enough to be in charge of things when the final confrontation does happen is another question.

Hi , Was olmert out of the loop? An interesting analystical question. he is currently on the brink of being tripped over by fraud allegations.Why his message via an external pathway if he intended an attack? perhaps it was to assuage in advance that the attack was not genuine, or perhaps he,as leader ,does indeed not really call the tune of the piper, perhaps he feared full retaliation as a response, perhaps he already knew it would be called off but did not know the spin that would be used to excuse such a flight. one can hardly say w"we were about to nuke iran but the yanks pulled the plug on our background boys and we said ok as long as they came up with a chitzpah excuse"

We have seen this in other regimes such as the US during the 60s, backroom meetings outside government channels to assuage when attack posturing is coming from the actual official government.

And something i have not beenable to dig up is who is the "HE" talked of by Bush and Yo'blair in that famous taped conversation during the G8 meeting when Lebanon was being attacked? Any ideas?

I do sometimes wonder about such as Thomson et al at the CFR.I am sure the real players that Kelly mentions are not known to the public.

The difficulty a I see it is there are rogue elements in both the military and the covert military that are not under usual line of command.OsM bin Laden talks of this before he is killed in his last authentic interview. the whole interview gives quite an insight. hence the US B52 bomber event and the trip to Iraq by the US leadership and teh call off of a long range attack flight by the IAF 36 hours later.

Burma was not called off or that call of was ignored.Bush still made the code ,why ? is he such an idiot? could well be.oops didn't mean to leqave that in the speech. he may not even be aware of such.

it would all have been so stream line if the false falg had gone ahead with the missing nuke and then the retaliation with the 5 nukes in place and the IAF behind.And Burma exploding with UK/Nato going in to grab those resources, yoho bravo. Interestingly Burma must have known of the plans last year when they moved the capital.

What so many make the mistake of is to mix spin and real analysis. there was no misunderstanding about the Iranians upsrising just as there was none about the iraqi supporting a Us occupation or welcoming with roses etc.

SO called analysts who pub;ish such rubbish are either confused/clumsy or part of the spin and should be watched as such.

so long, Annie Sourris

ps sorry so verbos, have only a small window to use and then must fo for a while . Please continue to post at WD ,they need you for balance and intelligent logical comment, it all adds up. I think Margo deserves us to make a few allowances for others mistakes, divided all are conqueiored.What are the big issues that we all agree upon?

Annie, I don't think we're going to find out the real and full story behind the Syria attack for sometime yet. I just think that if Syria had had any kind of nuclear ambitions Israel would have let the world know about it long ago. Rest assured, however, that whatever went on, the US would be up to their ears in it with Cheney playing a major role.

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is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
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